According to the Magic Online blog: "After nominations have been made, community members with the most nominations will become the 2014 Community Team and will then be pitted against a team of the roughest, toughest Wizards employees in a gauntlet of Magic Online challenges."
RE the CCC as I have said else where on this site I've gone from being a #1 fan to feeling fairly apathetic about it. To me it seems like a perfunctory PR white wash rather than a true celebration of community and honoring of Erik's memory.
I don't mean to sound harsh when I say that but it is honestly how I have felt. The last one was barely of interest. I do think there are plenty of "deserving" folk. (I put that in quotes because the criteria has seemed to change quite a bit since we started voting for members.)
Sebastian surely deserves a shot as he is still a founding member of this cast and chimes in when he can. I had the pleasure of meeting him and mtg pro Chris Calcano last year in May. We all went to see the Mets do terribly vs the Dodgers and it was great fun though I would not repeat that particular experience again. Boo baseball :p
So I can say having met him, he is a good man and he would be an asset to the cup. Unfortunately despite the fact I have nominated a number of people who have since been invited, I have less confidence in my influence of late. (Not much recent writing on my part has probably secured my ignominy for the foreseeable future.)
I do hope whomever goes thoroughly trounces the WOTC employees once again. They can't possibly hope to compete against true hearted community members.
Btw Darkness as fog is a terrible terrible trick. Whomever decided that was a reasonable play needs to be tanned. With a willow branch. I win -- no, darkness...OK next turn...Snapcaster darkness...turn after? No...etc. Very very irritating. And turbo fog itself is a gate way to hell.
It was a tournament at the start of 2010 in which you could win between 0 and 6 rounds of Momir which determined how many avatars of your choice you got.
I find it really disrespectful that they don't even mention the trophy name anymore. It'd be as if the NHL stopped using the "Stanley Cup" finals to describe the championship and just started calling it the NHL Finals (or something similar).
Correction: In 2009, the prize was not just one Momir avatar (they gave one free Momir pack to everyone at some other time), but a bunch of avatars of any player's choice – I don't remember the exact number, I think 5? Which means most players chose to get 5x of the alternate Serra Angel avatar, which was worth AN INSANE LOT at the time, and even if it immediately crashed, it was still pretty high if you managed to sell it fast when the bots started buying it again. I didn't even chose 5 of them and made about 40 tix out of the deal. That Community Cup is the reason no avatar is worth much anymore (except Momir and, for some reason, Tradewind Rider).
A trend that's worth noting is how the prizes kept progressively decreasing to almost nothing in following years, contributing to the feeling that the Community Cup is losing steam.
Thanks for writing this article. In the past I have taken it upon myself to write such things. I have leaned away from being involved in MTGO and thus rooting for the CCC in the last few years (mainly because of anxieties over the direction the client is heading in and general malaise with the game itself (Haven't loved a set since NPH.) But it is a good thing to talk about what we as a community are doing, expecting and hoping for.
I no longer have the confidence I had several years ago when I even wrote a song for the event ("Multiball" inspired by Hamtastic.) In fact I find myself having trouble caring enough to think of a nominee though I have had fairly great success in picking winners.
As far as I recall only the very first one had no nomination process. The others were just a big opaque in the traditional WoTC way of not communicating very clearly. (Man, Paulo nailed that one.) There are certainly many deserving folks out there and I guess if I were pressed I could pick one but my interest has waned quite a bit. 5 events have occurred so far and instead of the community being more tight knit and eager for the event it is my impression that the event has become another PR and AD campaign for WOTC to repair the damage its poor communications and strategies have done to its reputation.
At least that's how I felt the last couple times and I can't see things getting better. My impression is they moved away from events that the Community dominates in (constructed, well explored formats) because they want to have a fighting chance and that strategy worked on the 4th event so perhaps that is the correct choice but it removes an essential element from the Cup: Community involvement. Nominations are all well and good and I am proud that I have had some tiny influence in helping make those decisions in the past but it seems rather trite in the long run.
With the community pitching in to help the team members learn and build decks in a format, it felt like a real victory when those team members went on to win their games. The process of becoming involved and interacting daily with people we might otherwise never rub noses with was as valuable to me as the games themselves and certainly mattered a great deal more than the "prizes" that have long since watered down to mere tokens.
Well said. This is yet another example of having something taken away from us. I hope that WotC is listening, but I have a feeling that they already have a short-list of players they want to invite before the "nomination" process even started.
GainsBanding: To look at old prices of the duals (and any other card, online and offline), the best place is mtgGoldfish, which tracks MTGO Traders prices and is a very flexible tool. Check the history of Underground Sea ME2, for instance. You can see how it crashed right after the release of ME4, then slowly recovered. It crashed again in 2012, though, but starting from January 2013, it's been up up up up.
So what would you recommend for someone without a grand to dump on a deck then? Merfolk? Manaless Dredge? Your options are pretty limited and I don't think any of them are straight up better than Burn. Pointing out a problem is all well and good, but doing so without offering a solution is hardly helpful.
For someone with a little bit more money, though, you could build a low-ish budget Deathblade deck. Something like that would include a lot of Legacy staples that other options do not. A rough draft with approximate prices might look something like this.
Sideboard
1 Thoughtseize ($5)
3 Rest in Peace ($2)
3 Pithing Needle ($2)
2 Meddling Mage ($0)
2 Venser, Shaper Savant ($4)
2 Swan Song ($0)
2 Back to Basics ($11)
Even eschewing Wasteland completely, shaving the duals to a bare minimum, cutting a FoW, and substituting FoF for Jace, it still comes out to $650-700. That is no small chunk of change when compared to the minimal investment of a burn deck and probably still too high as an entry point for most people.
If you really wanted to get it down to a more reasonable price point, you'd need to cut the black completely as that gets rid of the Deltas and a few more duals.
Sideboard
3 Rest in Peace ($2)
3 Pithing Needle ($2)
2 Meddling Mage ($0)
2 Venser, Shaper Savant ($4)
3 Swan Song ($0)
2 Back to Basics ($11)
That brings you down to about $500, but probably also cuts the power of the deck below a competitive level. It does, however, provide a solid foundation to build on for someone trying to get into Legacy.
Not a fan (of the deck). I know you are trying to show a budget friendly alternative, but almost anyone who runs RDW is a freaking leper in the legacy community. GL against UW miracles
Only problem with recording on the weekend is we would have to skip a week of YSO.
I hear you though, talking about drafting it the day before the release is weak sauce forsure.
Not too worry though, the week after this episode will be packed with VMA stories and videos too I am sure.
Thanks for the EV calculations on VMA. They did pack a lot of value in!
It's worth noting though that unless the set fails in a big way the prices of a lot of these cards will drop, possibly substantially. I don't expect the packs to provide that good EV for long.
Here are the two State of the Programs from before ME4 was spoiled and before it was released. http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-november-12th-2010 http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-january-7th-2011
Unfortunately they don't list duals. I'm not sure why because I remember Underground Sea being around $40 or so. I remember that one being the most expensive. They must have been up there (and $40 or $50 would have been some of the most expensive cards online outside of FOW and Tarmogoyf), because people got really mad and quit over them being reprinted in ME4. Not sure where else to look for pries from that long ago... maybe old buy sell trade posts on CQ. It doesn't really matter now though. Duals in VMA will be a different animal.
Guys, please don't record next week's cast on Thursday night! It will be outdated as soon as it's posted. I don't want to listen you saying how excited you are about VMA coming when I'm drafting it the next morning. I want to hear your initial reactions and surprise draft stories. Record over the weekend as you are drafting or between rounds or something and post it Monday.
Between 1999 and 2000, they briefly decided to get rid of the mana symbols in the rule texts. See for instance Worn Powerstone, from Urza's Saga ("add two colorless mana", that's a mouthful) and Rofellos, which is from Urza's Destiny. I always hated it, loses all the visual immediacy of the symbols. Luckily they reverted back with Invasion block (at least for the colored mana symbols, the original painlands still say "one colorless mana"). Very weird. Maybe it was due to the Millennium Bug.
Quick question. If I want to play online with what is currently legal and bought the precon deck named "boltslinger", what cards other than a set of edolon's and grim lavamancers would I need? A few fetches?
According to the Magic Online blog: "After nominations have been made, community members with the most nominations will become the 2014 Community Team and will then be pitted against a team of the roughest, toughest Wizards employees in a gauntlet of Magic Online challenges."
http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/4099701
RE the CCC as I have said else where on this site I've gone from being a #1 fan to feeling fairly apathetic about it. To me it seems like a perfunctory PR white wash rather than a true celebration of community and honoring of Erik's memory.
I don't mean to sound harsh when I say that but it is honestly how I have felt. The last one was barely of interest. I do think there are plenty of "deserving" folk. (I put that in quotes because the criteria has seemed to change quite a bit since we started voting for members.)
Sebastian surely deserves a shot as he is still a founding member of this cast and chimes in when he can. I had the pleasure of meeting him and mtg pro Chris Calcano last year in May. We all went to see the Mets do terribly vs the Dodgers and it was great fun though I would not repeat that particular experience again. Boo baseball :p
So I can say having met him, he is a good man and he would be an asset to the cup. Unfortunately despite the fact I have nominated a number of people who have since been invited, I have less confidence in my influence of late. (Not much recent writing on my part has probably secured my ignominy for the foreseeable future.)
I do hope whomever goes thoroughly trounces the WOTC employees once again. They can't possibly hope to compete against true hearted community members.
Btw Darkness as fog is a terrible terrible trick. Whomever decided that was a reasonable play needs to be tanned. With a willow branch. I win -- no, darkness...OK next turn...Snapcaster darkness...turn after? No...etc. Very very irritating. And turbo fog itself is a gate way to hell.
It was a tournament at the start of 2010 in which you could win between 0 and 6 rounds of Momir which determined how many avatars of your choice you got.
I find it really disrespectful that they don't even mention the trophy name anymore. It'd be as if the NHL stopped using the "Stanley Cup" finals to describe the championship and just started calling it the NHL Finals (or something similar).
I hope you didn't sideboard as your sideboard guide has listed for the twin matchup, because you would get a game loss
Correction: In 2009, the prize was not just one Momir avatar (they gave one free Momir pack to everyone at some other time), but a bunch of avatars of any player's choice – I don't remember the exact number, I think 5? Which means most players chose to get 5x of the alternate Serra Angel avatar, which was worth AN INSANE LOT at the time, and even if it immediately crashed, it was still pretty high if you managed to sell it fast when the bots started buying it again. I didn't even chose 5 of them and made about 40 tix out of the deal. That Community Cup is the reason no avatar is worth much anymore (except Momir and, for some reason, Tradewind Rider).
A trend that's worth noting is how the prizes kept progressively decreasing to almost nothing in following years, contributing to the feeling that the Community Cup is losing steam.
Well said. I really don't want to see Erik's trophy become devalued.
At first glace I thought I messed up, and then remembered that rouge is french for red.
And then I was like hooray!
Phy Obliterator isn't just a 5/5 unblockable. He's a 5/5 Unblockable that is a Moat when untapped (unless lethal is on board).
I could even be bothered to log in during the last CCC
Yup, I was being cute with the title. It drives me crazy when people mess up between rogue and rouge, but I thought it appropriate for this article!
Rouge as in red? Intriguing I thought perhaps it was just a typo :p
Thanks for writing this article. In the past I have taken it upon myself to write such things. I have leaned away from being involved in MTGO and thus rooting for the CCC in the last few years (mainly because of anxieties over the direction the client is heading in and general malaise with the game itself (Haven't loved a set since NPH.) But it is a good thing to talk about what we as a community are doing, expecting and hoping for.
I no longer have the confidence I had several years ago when I even wrote a song for the event ("Multiball" inspired by Hamtastic.) In fact I find myself having trouble caring enough to think of a nominee though I have had fairly great success in picking winners.
As far as I recall only the very first one had no nomination process. The others were just a big opaque in the traditional WoTC way of not communicating very clearly. (Man, Paulo nailed that one.) There are certainly many deserving folks out there and I guess if I were pressed I could pick one but my interest has waned quite a bit. 5 events have occurred so far and instead of the community being more tight knit and eager for the event it is my impression that the event has become another PR and AD campaign for WOTC to repair the damage its poor communications and strategies have done to its reputation.
At least that's how I felt the last couple times and I can't see things getting better. My impression is they moved away from events that the Community dominates in (constructed, well explored formats) because they want to have a fighting chance and that strategy worked on the 4th event so perhaps that is the correct choice but it removes an essential element from the Cup: Community involvement. Nominations are all well and good and I am proud that I have had some tiny influence in helping make those decisions in the past but it seems rather trite in the long run.
With the community pitching in to help the team members learn and build decks in a format, it felt like a real victory when those team members went on to win their games. The process of becoming involved and interacting daily with people we might otherwise never rub noses with was as valuable to me as the games themselves and certainly mattered a great deal more than the "prizes" that have long since watered down to mere tokens.
Well said. This is yet another example of having something taken away from us. I hope that WotC is listening, but I have a feeling that they already have a short-list of players they want to invite before the "nomination" process even started.
GainsBanding: To look at old prices of the duals (and any other card, online and offline), the best place is mtgGoldfish, which tracks MTGO Traders prices and is a very flexible tool. Check the history of Underground Sea ME2, for instance. You can see how it crashed right after the release of ME4, then slowly recovered. It crashed again in 2012, though, but starting from January 2013, it's been up up up up.
So what would you recommend for someone without a grand to dump on a deck then? Merfolk? Manaless Dredge? Your options are pretty limited and I don't think any of them are straight up better than Burn. Pointing out a problem is all well and good, but doing so without offering a solution is hardly helpful.
For someone with a little bit more money, though, you could build a low-ish budget Deathblade deck. Something like that would include a lot of Legacy staples that other options do not. A rough draft with approximate prices might look something like this.
4 Deathrite Shaman ($11)
4 Stoneforge Mystic ($12)
2 True-name Nemesis ($60)
1 Batterskull ($35)
1 Umezawa's Jitte ($3)
3 Force of Will ($80)
2 Spell Pierce ($0)
3 Thoughtseize ($15)
4 Swords to Plowshares ($2)
2 Supreme Verdict ($2)
2 Council's Judgment ($??, Engineered Explosives if these are too expensive)
4 Brainstorm ($8)
4 Ponder ($0)
3 Fact or Fiction ($2, Jace if your budget allows)
3 Flooded Strand ($135)
3 Polluted Delta ($175)
2 Marsh Flats ($30)
1 Underground Sea ($30)
1 Tundra ($40)
1 Scrubland ($8)
1`Tropical Island (@20)
6 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
Sideboard
1 Thoughtseize ($5)
3 Rest in Peace ($2)
3 Pithing Needle ($2)
2 Meddling Mage ($0)
2 Venser, Shaper Savant ($4)
2 Swan Song ($0)
2 Back to Basics ($11)
Even eschewing Wasteland completely, shaving the duals to a bare minimum, cutting a FoW, and substituting FoF for Jace, it still comes out to $650-700. That is no small chunk of change when compared to the minimal investment of a burn deck and probably still too high as an entry point for most people.
If you really wanted to get it down to a more reasonable price point, you'd need to cut the black completely as that gets rid of the Deltas and a few more duals.
4 Stoneforge Mystic ($12)
3 Snapcaster Mage ($25)
2 True-name Nemesis ($60)
1 Batterskull ($35)
1 Umezawa's Jitte ($3)
3 Force of Will ($80)
3 Spell Pierce ($0)
2 Counterspell ($0)
4 Swords to Plowshares ($2)
2 Supreme Verdict ($2)
2 Council's Judgment ($??, Detention Sphere if these are too expensive)
4 Preordain ($0, too few shuffle effects to run Brainstorm)
4 Ponder ($0)
3 Fact or Fiction ($2, Jace if your budget allows)
4 Flooded Strand ($180)
2 Tundra ($80)
2 Mystic Gate ($7)
9 Island
5 Plains
Sideboard
3 Rest in Peace ($2)
3 Pithing Needle ($2)
2 Meddling Mage ($0)
2 Venser, Shaper Savant ($4)
3 Swan Song ($0)
2 Back to Basics ($11)
That brings you down to about $500, but probably also cuts the power of the deck below a competitive level. It does, however, provide a solid foundation to build on for someone trying to get into Legacy.
Not a fan (of the deck). I know you are trying to show a budget friendly alternative, but almost anyone who runs RDW is a freaking leper in the legacy community. GL against UW miracles
-Zach
I can't wait until we're all applejacking together in a couple of weeks. You're my hero, Adrian.
Post it on Saturday!
Only problem with recording on the weekend is we would have to skip a week of YSO.
I hear you though, talking about drafting it the day before the release is weak sauce forsure.
Not too worry though, the week after this episode will be packed with VMA stories and videos too I am sure.
Thanks for the EV calculations on VMA. They did pack a lot of value in!
It's worth noting though that unless the set fails in a big way the prices of a lot of these cards will drop, possibly substantially. I don't expect the packs to provide that good EV for long.
Here are the two State of the Programs from before ME4 was spoiled and before it was released.
http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-november-12th-2010
http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-january-7th-2011
Unfortunately they don't list duals. I'm not sure why because I remember Underground Sea being around $40 or so. I remember that one being the most expensive. They must have been up there (and $40 or $50 would have been some of the most expensive cards online outside of FOW and Tarmogoyf), because people got really mad and quit over them being reprinted in ME4. Not sure where else to look for pries from that long ago... maybe old buy sell trade posts on CQ. It doesn't really matter now though. Duals in VMA will be a different animal.
Guys, please don't record next week's cast on Thursday night! It will be outdated as soon as it's posted. I don't want to listen you saying how excited you are about VMA coming when I'm drafting it the next morning. I want to hear your initial reactions and surprise draft stories. Record over the weekend as you are drafting or between rounds or something and post it Monday.
Between 1999 and 2000, they briefly decided to get rid of the mana symbols in the rule texts. See for instance Worn Powerstone, from Urza's Saga ("add two colorless mana", that's a mouthful) and Rofellos, which is from Urza's Destiny. I always hated it, loses all the visual immediacy of the symbols. Luckily they reverted back with Invasion block (at least for the colored mana symbols, the original painlands still say "one colorless mana"). Very weird. Maybe it was due to the Millennium Bug.
Why were the Masques rocks printed as "add one red mana..."? They definitely had mana symbol technology by then. Weird!
Quick question. If I want to play online with what is currently legal and bought the precon deck named "boltslinger", what cards other than a set of edolon's and grim lavamancers would I need? A few fetches?